Teen Stabs Mother-in-Law to Death, Throws Baby at Police

Mental illness is no joke. Ellyzabeth Rainey, 19, is facing murder charges after she stabbed her mother-in-law to death then threw her baby at police as she tried to flee. Insane.

When police spotted a bloody butcher knife on the kitchen counter of a southeastern Colorado Springs apartment, Ellyzabeth Joy Rainey held up her two-month-old baby. “Take my baby,” court papers say she said to police. “Because I am going to run.” Police say Rainey threw her baby and ran. An officer caught the child. Police caught Rainey in the courtyard outside the apartment building and asked why she ran. “Because I just murdered someone,” she said, officers wrote in an arrest affidavit. Rainey, 19, was arrested Wednesday afternoon in the killing of her mother-in-law, 59-year-old Deborah Rainey. Visiting from San Francisco, Deborah Rainey had been staying at her son Jason’s apartment to help take care of his and Ellyzabeth’s baby. The couple was estranged and planning to get divorced, Ellyzabeth told police, court papers say. Police went to the apartments [...] to investigate a disturbance Wednesday. Officers said they wound up in Rainey’s apartment after they heard a baby crying. Police say they accompanied her inside and saw the bloody butcher knife. Ellyzabeth told police she had been hospitalized recently for psychiatric care and said “voices” told her Deborah was going to take everything away from her, court papers said. Deborah had never liked her, Ellyzabeth told police, and she was sick of being pushed around. So, “she killed her,” court papers say. Police say Ellyzabeth told officers she threw boiling water on her mother-in-law to distract her, and then threw weights at her head. She stabbed her multiple times, police said she told them. She also poured bleach into her nose and mouth, court papers say. Deborah was dead when police found her. Officers say her wounds were consistent with Ellyzabeth’s story.